Our Audience Development Director, Catrin Skaperdas, was on the “From Hobbyist to Hit: What Sets Great Podcasts Apart” panel at Podcast Movement Evolutions in Chicago this week. Alongside Catrin, the panel featured Arielle Nissenblatt, Community Marketing Manager at Audily, Norma Jean Belenky, Podcast & Media Strategist at NJB Media, Randi P’Pool, Owner of P’Pool Media, and John Kiernan, CEO of PodHouse Productions.
The panel discussed what makes a podcast successful in today’s crowded market, sharing expert insights on the creative, technical, and strategic choices that turn podcasts into must-listen shows. The session covered the importance of content quality, branding, and building strong audience connections to achieve long-term growth and sustainability.
Here are some of Catrin’s top tips for making your podcast stand out:
Q: What common traits do you see in the shows that break through versus those that remain hobbyist projects / unsuccessful big production flops?
A: Consistency, time and commitment to a mission.
Successful creators are the tortoises not the hairs. They are consistent – Followers trust when they can expect a new episode – and they understand that success might come after a long time of being consistent. Maybe years.
There is one mistake I’ve seen made a few times with big productions and/or people who are known for another medium, and that is: When they become hosts of a podcast, they rely on the fact that they have a following somewhere else. It’s not enough to say, “Hey, I have a podcast now.” Podcast creators need to be dedicated to the medium of podcasts to see success.
Q: What strategies for branding elements (podcast cover art, show titles, and descriptions) are vital to a podcast maintaining consistency and gaining traction? What’s a must-have strategy?
A: Think of your podcast as a brand: What are the brand guidelines (e.g. brand colors and primary and secondary font)? What kind of art do you use (e.g. hand drawn, AI, or icons)? What tone of voice are you using (e.g. casual and witty or professional and to be taken seriously)?
Podcasters can’t think solely of the content. “It’s great content, people will love it.” Maybe, but we need to get them there. Draw them in with art and metadata, and keep them there.
For example: When it comes to art, it’s important that when looking at your show art, new listeners can guess what the show is about and existing listeners immediately think of your podcast. It’s also important to keep your show title on episode art for easy podcast identification, but remember not to include your episode title (or too much other text).
A must have in a coordinated strategy is again, consistency. Take for example episode titles: Do you capitalize the first letter of all the words in your episode titles or just the ones greater than three letters? Do you use the ampersand symbol or write “and”? Do you use a colon, a common symbol used by AI generated captions?
Q: What are some standout examples of the best audience communities built around a podcast, and what lessons can podcasters learn from them?
A: We’re Here to Help (Headgum) – They have a Patreon where they engage with their listeners, and they remember people who they speak with. For example, they’ll speak to someone on Patreon and that person will come onto the podcast, and they’ll remember the conversation they had with them on Patreon. Also, when people call in, they’re invested in that person’s story and they encourage them to keep in touch on how things go, and ask them to call back.
Moral of the story: People like to feel like they’re “part” of something, not on the outside tuning in.
